PROFESSOR FIRED FOR publicly charging students with plagiarism. He seems unrepentant.

Young, a former adjunct professor of management information systems, said he believes he made the right move. He said trials are public for a reason, and plagiarism should be treated the same way. He added that exposing cheaters is an effective deterrent. “They were told the consequences in the syllabus,” he said. “They didn’t believe it.” . . .

“You have to hold them accountable,” he said. “If you don’t, you hold a grave danger of having an illiterate society.”

Roundup at TaxProf.

Meanwhile, Eugene Volokh thinks the University may be in the wrong here.

UPDATE:  Eugene Volokh emails a clarification

Thanks very much for the link to my post, but I should note that I don’t think the university is in the wrong for firing him:

I can’t speak to whether FERPA indeed applies here. But I’m inclined to say that a university wouldn’t be violating academic freedom — or, as to public universities, the First Amendment — if it provided that a faculty member generally may not publicize embarrassing things he learns about specific named students as a result of his teaching, even including dishonest conduct by those students.

I do think the university might not be doing enough about plagiarists, based on its own statement that it’s not clear that a professor could even give an F to a student for plagiarism.  But as to the firing, I think the university’s action is at least permissible.